Classroom

Inspiration

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I love it when I am in the middle of a lesson and I get a ‘brainstorm’. My students are so used to it at this point in the year. Today was another ‘brainstorm’ kind of day. We were just beginning a lesson on Geometry. Today was the review of 3-D shapes — sphere, cone, rectangular prism, pyramid, cube, and cylinder. So there I am ‘blah, blah, blahing’ away, when it hits me… Have the kids make ’em… Out of pipe cleaners and paper and whatever else! Brilliant! And of course I stop the lesson to write it down. Wouldn’t want to forget my own brillance!

When I am finally finished, sounding much like Charlie Brown’s teacher I’m sure, I share my idea with the students. Together — because most of my great ideas are just a base, and not fully formed — we worked out the specifics. So in the end, groups worked together on how to make the shape assigned, find out how many vertices, edges, and faces AND then make a short video. They did a great job. Here is a sample video.

And tomorrow I will try that whole flip the classroom thing again. Hope it goes better than last time.

The ‘Flipped’ Classroom

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I recently stumbled upon the concept of a ‘flipped classroom’ — Yes I know, it’s not THAT new. I have been fascinated with it for months now. Essentially a flipped classroom is where the ‘basic’ learning and lecturing is done outside the classroom — generally at home for ‘homework’. This allows students and teachers to arrive at school the next day ready to dive into deeper concepts, projects, and/or tasks. As I teach 3rd grade and not all students have access to a  computer (or internet) at home, I wasn’t (and still aren’t) sure how to accomplish this successfully. So today I ‘dabbled’ with flipping a classroom. We are fortunate to have a computer lab with 30 computers. We are also fortunate enough to have EnVision Math (Pearson) in our district for grades k-5. So the students were assigned certain learning videos. Then later in the day, we had our lesson. Was it a success? Not so much. I’m guessing it has more to do with the learning objectives than the process. You see, we are beginning ‘long division’. That wonderful task of dividing a 2-digit (or more) number by 1-digit. As it was a hard concept for 3rd graders, I will try ‘flipping’ the classroom again. Maybe with something a bit easier. I’m thinking I may have better luck with some Science concepts. I’ll keep you posted.

Please share any experiences you have with flipping a classroom. What worked? What didn’t?